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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academia Sinica | 1/3 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academia_Sinica | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T10:29:04.194889+00:00 | kb-cron |
Academia Sinica (AS; Latin: Academia Sinica, lit. 'Chinese Academy'; Chinese: 中央研究院; pinyin: Zhōngyāng Yánjiùyuàn) is the national academy of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Headquartered in Nangang, Taipei, it conducts research in mathematics, physical sciences, life sciences, humanities, and social sciences. The academy was founded in Nanjing, China, in 1928, and was re-established in Taiwan in 1949 following the Chinese Civil War. As an educational institute, it provides PhD training and scholarship through its English-language Taiwan International Graduate Program in biology, agriculture, chemistry, physics, informatics, and earth and environmental sciences. Membership in Academia Sinica is determined through the election of academicians. An academician of Academia Sinica is the highest academic honor in the country. The current president of the academy since 2016 is James C. Liao, an expert in metabolic engineering, systems biology and synthetic biology.
== History ==
=== Founding and early years ===
Academia Sinica was established in April 1928 in the capital city of Nanking by the National Government of the Republic of China as the country's highest research organization. Its name is a Latin title whose literal meaning is "Chinese Academy". The academy's first president was the philosopher Cai Yuanpei and its first director-general was the scholar Yang Xingfo. According to historian James Reardon-Anderson, it was "by far the best-funded, most prominent research organ in Republican China". Prior to World War II, Academia Sinica received one-third of all government research expenditures and was also funded by the British and American Boxer Indemnities. The academy's early expenditures encompassed buying the lands, buildings, and equipment necessary to support a staff dedicated to the study of applied sciences. Under Cai's direction, Academia Sinica adopted European and American institutional models, including the practice of electing academicians. Cai envisioned the academy's mission as modernizing Chinese academia by "saving the nation through scholarship" and "saving the nation through science". He advocated for the academic freedom of educational administration, so that the academy's scholarship could develop autonomously without interference from politics. Under Cai and Yang, the academy operated independently of the Kuomintang (KMT) government and attained membership in the International Council of Scientific Unions. By 1931, ten research institutes—ranging from physics to philology to zoology—were in operation. In 1935, president Ding Wenjiang established a system of academic assessors in 1935.
=== War years === During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Cai died in 1949 and was succeeded as president by geologist Chu Chia-hua, who organized the relocation of the academy's artifacts from Kunming when fighting intensified there. After the Surrender of Japan, the academy's headquarters returned to Nanking. In October 1946, president Chu Chia-hua organized the election of the academy's first group of academicians. They included mathematicians Su Buqing, Shiing-Shen Chern, and Hua Luogeng; chemists Hsien Wu, Zhuang Changgong, K. K. Chen, and Hou Debang; geologists Li Siguang, Weng Wenhao, Yang Zhongjian, and Zhang Hongzhao; meteorologist Chu Coching; engineer Mao Yisheng; and historian-linguists Fu Ssu-nien and Chen Yinke; among others. Of the 81 academicians elected, 49 were educated in the U.S., 23 in Europe, and five in Japan; six—including archaeologist Dong Zuobin and historians Gu Jiegang and Liu Yizheng—were educated domestically. On December 19, 1948, all of the academy's institutes unanimously voted to move to Taiwan via Guangxi and Guangdong, due to the outbreak of the Chinese Civil War. However, only Academia Sinica's Institute of Mathematics and the Institute of History and Philology were able to relocate to Taiwan; the remainder of the academy's property and affiliates in mainland China were absorbed into the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Of the original group of 81 academicians, only nine moved to Taiwan. The academy was low on monetary funds, and reopened with the Institute of History and Philology in December 1954. In the same year, its main campus was constructed in Jiuzhuang, Nangang, Taipei. Due to the importance of agriculture to the economy of Taiwan, efforts were made to revive the Institute of Botany. The second convocation of the Academia Sinica was held in 1957. At the same time, the mainland part of Academia Sinica remained functioning under Communist rule and was renamed as the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the 1980s.
=== Contemporary === In the 2000s, many of the current institutes and research centers were established, partially through reorganization of old ones. Academia Sinica's first PhD program, the Taiwan International Graduate Program, was inaugurated in 2006.
== Leadership == The president of Academia Sinica is appointed by the president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) from three candidates recommended by the Council Meeting. The president of Academia Sinica must be an academician. After the appointment, the president serves a five-year term and can serve up to two consecutive terms. Academia Sinica's current president is James C. Liao, a biochemist, who replaced Chi-Huey Wong, a biological chemist and the Parsons Foundation Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, as the 11th president on 21 June 2016. The list of past presidents also includes Hu Shih, a philosopher and essayist, and a key contributor to Chinese liberalism and language reform in his advocacy for the use of vernacular Chinese, as well as an influential redology scholar and holder of the Jiaxu manuscript (Chinese: 甲戌本; pinyin: Jiǎxū běn) until his death. The fifth president, Yuan T. Lee, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "contributions to the dynamics of chemical elementary processes".
=== Presidents === Cai Yuanpei (1928–1940) Chu Chia-Hua (Acting, 1940–1957) Hu Shih (1958–1962) Wang Shih-Chieh (1962–1970) Chien Shih-Liang (1970–1983) Wu Ta-You (1983–1994) Yuan T. Lee (1994–2006) Chi-Huey Wong (2006–2016) James C. Liao (2016–)
== Convocation ==